Education should lift all students

[Live True]

Maunakumu and Kacey, you both make some very convincing points on the issue of letting schools compete for students. Yes, I agree that many parents...if not most...are able to make decisions regarding what is best for thier children...given the time and the resources to do so. But it is becoming a norm, at least where I live, for parents to work 2-3 jobs, to make ends meet...and yes, some of that is because they overspent and made poor choices re: credit and homes....however, if you are working more than one job, and both in the home are working....when do you sit down to review the information and make the decision to affect your child's future? Over your 30 minute lunch break?

That said....indeed, the system is broken, and I think the reluctance of many is based on the seemingly overwhelming systemic changes that would need to happen to make the ideal world where everyone had the resources to choice and transport thier children to the best school for them.

I LOVE and applaud the idea that different children learn differently and should be given the opportunities to explore and learn as is best for them. I wholeheartedely support the concept. In reality, it would likely take several steps to reach that ideal, over many years. Institutionalized thinking and pragmatic realities that need to be recognized and worked with, would require a lot to get to the point you are proposing...at least in many urban centers and in some distant rural settings.

Meanwhile, what I would love to see is some minimum standards for critical thinking and exploration, smaller class sizes, and better benefits or circumstances for teachers (which could, but might not mean, higher pay) to encourage more people with vision into this very demanding and worthwhile career. I'd like to see more programs that encourage teaching as a second career for many professionals who have lots to share, and would make thier classes INTERESTING because they have real world experiences and examples to draw from!

I think...as first steps...that could go a long way.

Again, I agree with your concepts, I just think that the implementation would take a lot of changes and several stages to make it a reality...particularly in some of the poorer urban and rural settings. I agree most parents could make the decisons, given time and resources....but deciding and getting there are two different things.

Again, thanks for the great conversation!

 

[Kacey]

Let's split some hairs. How many people do you really think CANNOT make decisions for their children? Why is it impossible for a social program to help this small population to learn to do so?

Live True addressed this much more clearly than I could.

This sentiment is one step away from saying
that "certain" people are incapable from learning anything.

Of course all people can learn - the question is, what can they learn, and to what standard? There is a boy at my school named Eliab; he's 12. Due to problems caused by abnormal development in the womb, he has a permanent tracheotomy, a permanent stomach tube, limited control over the muscles in his head and neck, and no control over any other part of his body. No one is really sure if he understands anything anyone says, as he does not respond consistently to any stimulus; sometimes he smiles, sometimes he cries, sometimes he does nothing - all in response to the same person entering the room. Can he learn? We don't know - but we're not going to stop trying.

I reject that and I reject any sentiment that leads down that road. Everyone is capable of learning...some people need more help or may need to learn different things. What is wrong with providing the ability to get help to do both?

My school has all sorts of programs for parents, designed to do just that. They are very poorly attended, no matter how hard we try to advertise them and convince parents to come - and the ones who do come are not the ones who truly need to be there. This is a societal problem, and the schools cannot solve it alone - and that is why I object to the schools being the focus of all blame, as much as I would object to saying that the schools are blameless. This, again, is the pendulum of which I spoke - parents need to parent, teachers need to teach - and everyone in the community, parent or not, needs to ensure that children understand that education (whatever that education is determined to be comprised of) is necessary, and valuable... but too many children don't believe that, because their parents, and other members of their community, demonstrate to them clearly that education is not that high up the list.

What all of this comes down to is indoctrination. As teachers, we all learn to be part of this system, how to defend the system, how to propagate it.

I don't defend all of it - parts of the educational system are in serious need of revamping - but neither does that mean I will dismiss all the good that is done out of hand, simply because some parts aren't working.

Well, the system doesn't work. It wasn't designed to work in the sense that any sane person would think about learning. It was designed to train a populace to become cogs in the vast massified uptopian society dreamed up by the industrial leaders at the turn of the last century.

If that's your opinion - let's dump the system entirely, shall we? Take the burden off society entirely, and put it on the parents. Those who can, can hire tutors; those who can't can band together to hire teachers; those who can't do that, or don't care, can teach their children themselves, or allow them to grow up illiterate.

If the system is broken - the come up with ideas to fix it. Dismissing it out of hand by decrying those who set it up poorly in the first place merely perpetuates the problem.

It may be incomprehensible for teachers to think of their students (or students parents) as capable of choosing what they want to learn. But it doesn't mean that its true. It's just dogma.

Some can - most, I would say, from my experience. But some can't. I sat in a meeting last year, with the mother of one of my students. He is 13; she is 26. She sat there, in front of her child, 2 teachers, a social worker, and an administrator, and stated clearly that every problem in her life was due to her son. She provided a long list of details. She went on to say that, at his age, he is an adult, and is responsible for himself - if he chooses to stay out all night, she's not going to go look for him; if he chooses to stay gone for a week or more (which he had just done), she would still not look for him - the school only knew he was a runaway when, after calling every day he'd been absent, the attendance clerk finally reached her directly, when he'd been gone 4 days... and no, she hadn't called the police... he was around somewhere, why would she want to call the police for that? Do you trust this woman to make educational decisions for her child - or his two younger siblings?

There are at least 10 children in my school who are court-ordered to attend school, because their parents don't make them come when they don't want to; about half of whom are court-ordered because, as the oldest, they have to stay home any time one of the younger kids is sick, or the babysitter is unavailable, or the parent just doesn't feel like dealing with them. The other half just don't show up, and their parents don't do anything. There are at least 20 other kids who should be on attendance contracts (this is out of ~750 students) but aren't, because the school can't afford to shell out $1500 per student to take them all to court. Do you trust their parents to make good educational decisions for them?

We have students who have been placed in foster care because their parents have assaulted them, mentally, physically, emotionally, sexually, medically - any way you can think of. Do you trust their parents to make good educaiton decisions for them?

Don't get me wrong - I love the kids I teach, which is I why I continue to do so, and most of their parents are involved and informed - or at least concerned and curious - but there are parents out there who just don't care, and I don't trust them as far as I can heave them, never mind with their children's future.

Maunakumu and Kacey, you both make some very convincing points on the issue of letting schools compete for students. Yes, I agree that many parents...if not most...are able to make decisions regarding what is best for thier children...given the time and the resources to do so. But it is becoming a norm, at least where I live, for parents to work 2-3 jobs, to make ends meet...and yes, some of that is because they overspent and made poor choices re: credit and homes....however, if you are working more than one job, and both in the home are working....when do you sit down to review the information and make the decision to affect your child's future? Over your 30 minute lunch break?

This is, of course, the more common parent who does not have the information to make the absolutely best decision for their children... except that frequently where I teach, it's parent rather than parents, and even then, every time something cuts their income just slightly, and they have to move to a different rental, which entails crossing the city line to where they're not in arrears - which means their kids change school districts. For the vast majority of students, we would let them stay the rest of the year, at least, regardless of where they live - but we cannot provide transportation (unless they meet the criteria for being homeless), and their parents can't provide it either, especially if they are too young to ride the public bus alone.

And even when the parent does have the time and information to make the best choice - there's that transportation issue again. You've determined that the best school for your child's needs is across town... but you don't have a car, and your child is 7 years old. How do you get the child to the school? You can't take the bus; you'll miss too much work. You can't move - it's too far from your job, and the area costs too much. So you leave your child in the nearest school, and do the best you can.

That said....indeed, the system is broken, and I think the reluctance of many is based on the seemingly overwhelming systemic changes that would need to happen to make the ideal world where everyone had the resources to choice and transport thier children to the best school for them.

It is indeed... battered and damaged, and yet continuing to do the best it can in difficult situations. The education system needs to be reworked entirely, to meet the needs of students today and in the future; it needs to be standardized across the nation, or at least within each state, so that students who move don't lose education to catching up to wherever the new school is in the curriculum. It needs to be research based, and the methods chosen for instruction need to be optimized for each student. The school year needs to stop following the agricultural calendar and meet for more days every year, to accommodate the needs of students and the ever-growing amount of information that is deemed "necessary", to provide time for all the so-called "extras" that have been cut to meet test scores - art, music, physical education, industrial arts, all the things that got cut to free money for "basics"... and which took away the things that motivated many students to perform in school.

But all of that takes money, which means the taxpayers must agree to pay it. Myself, I'd rather pay for education up front than Welfare and incarceration later - but too many people don't look at it like that; they look at test scores and say the schools aren't doing their jobs, and why put more money into a failing system. And yes - it's going to take money to fix the system in anything but little bits and pieces, and that's not going to do anything but put band-aids here and there, which will eventually come off.

I LOVE and applaud the idea that different children learn differently and should be given the opportunities to explore and learn as is best for them. I wholeheartedely support the concept. In reality, it would likely take several steps to reach that ideal, over many years. Institutionalized thinking and pragmatic realities that need to be recognized and worked with, would require a lot to get to the point you are proposing...at least in many urban centers and in some distant rural settings.

Me too. See above.

Meanwhile, what I would love to see is some minimum standards for critical thinking and exploration, smaller class sizes, and better benefits or circumstances for teachers (which could, but might not mean, higher pay) to encourage more people with vision into this very demanding and worthwhile career. I'd like to see more programs that encourage teaching as a second career for many professionals who have lots to share, and would make thier classes INTERESTING because they have real world experiences and examples to draw from!

I think...as first steps...that could go a long way.

It could... but again, it will require a societal change, and I just haven't seen that happening.

Again, I agree with your concepts, I just think that the implementation would take a lot of changes and several stages to make it a reality...particularly in some of the poorer urban and rural settings. I agree most parents could make the decisons, given time and resources....but deciding and getting there are two different things.

See above.

Again, thanks for the great conversation!

Thanks for your comments as well.

 

[cdunn]

I actually teach physics in the high school at this moment...although I will eventually be moving on to other things.

As a teacher, I can tell you that this is why "schools" we have now don't work for any students. There are always going to be classes where students are dealing with these issues.

A teacher can be the most engaging, personable, and interesting person and there will still be people in his class that will never ever ever have a use for what they are learning.

Is forcing a student to learn something they don't want to learn a waste of time and money? What would you do to a student in a Martial Arts class that didn't want to be there?

Maybe the whole thought that we can manage a population into some standard of "success" needs to go. I've seen these schools. I've worked in them. These students want to learn, but they don't want to learn the material that is being taught in the school. What do you call a building filled with people who don't want to be there?

A prison.

Let people do what the want. Give them the opportunity to learn whatever they want and I think the apathy will go away instantly.

I think we need to move away from the idea that a school prepares a student for a job or a career. People are not cogs in some machine, they are individuals with beautiful aspirations and motivations. What kind of society measures its health by encouraging economic growth and productivity through the destruction of the individual dream?

I want an education system that sets the mind free, that makes every bit of learning worthwhile, that gives its students the knowledge they need to develop their dreams to their fullest potential.

You don't get that with "job skills" and kids know that. That's why they hate it.



What goals will work for everybody? You and I want different things. We have different goals which we are capable of setting ourselves.



IMHO, the best proof of a bad teacher or bad teaching is a teacher with no students.

The kids hate it because they're getting Nothing Whatsoever At All. And they can see that. They're not getting job skills, they're not getting critical thinking, they're not getting the ability to fill their dreams and aspirations. And since they're getting nothing, they're ignoring it.

Even the splinters you're imagining have goals, however, the goal to teach a student a specific thing your student wants to learn in the specific way your student wants to know. Their goal is not 'waste time until the kid turns 18'. And giving the child a reason to bother is the most important thing of all.

I just also happen to think that, you know, offering things that the kid that's stuck in poverty can actually SEE as a path out of it is inherently valuable. But that's just me.

 

[Makalakumu]

A lot of what I'm saying seems like its off the chain, but the people who designed our system at the early part of last century were surprisingly candid about what they wanted to accomplish. This is not my opinion. It's what THEY said and its what has been passed down to us.

Every exception to the solution can be solved by creating a special school/program for kids like this.

Kids and families who have more problems should have more money allocated to them in regards to education. This provides incentive for the creation of programs to serve them.

The exceptions are NOT who we need to worry about, however. Its everyone else. School, as we know it, do not serve anyone well. They are too big and they serve too many people who are too diverse for one standard.

I'm swimming upstream in a river of dogma. Here's a good resource to better understand the point's I'm making.

Underground History of American Education.

 

[Tez3]

I can't speak for American education but I know ours is going downhill rapidly. We've had all sorts of weird and wonderful theories put into our schools now and the result is we are getting more and more children who leave school unable to read, write or do basic sums. The Army has set up a foundation college for young recruits because so many were joining up illiterate. The Army is giving them their basic education. The Army is also short of recruits so they have been recruiting in Commonwealth countries. the soldiers from Zimbabwe and Zambia especially seem to stick out, they are polite, courteous and well educated.
I asked one of them why, it seems that education in these countries is what our wonderful educators would call 'backward' now, no fancy schemes for learning to read or boosting the self esteem of children by not having sports days ( so no one loses and is damaged). The education is basic in that they learn to read, write, do maths, history etc as we used to. The children are eager to learn, they know education is priceless. Parents and extended families are there to make sure the children stay on track, someone is always there to make sure the children are looked after.
We can't go back to when things were that way here sadly but we can stop nonsense like not correcting spelling as it may damage a child if it's criticised, history here is taught by projects, lifting parts of history out and making models instead of teaching it from the beginning and working to present day. A culture of working hard should be engendered in our schools instead of pandering to the school psychologists who worry about the childrens fragile egos.
Schools to a certain extent have taken over the lives of children, this doesn't encourage parents who are lax to take up any more control, there's always well 'school will sort/teach/get rid of the problem'.
Schools should be smaller, thousands of pupils in one place cannot be a good thing for anyone. We used to have truancy officers who's jobs were to chase down non attending pupils. discipline used to be a lot stricter in school, I don't mean we should go back to caning etc but teachers should be taught (and allowed) to be teachers and use discipline rather than being every childs friend. Children have friends, they need teachers too.(This goes for parenting too, children need parents not more 'friends')

 

[Makalakumu]

In America, we've had decades of institutionalization that turned a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" attitude into an apathetic easily managed mob of morons. Too many do not pay attention, too many do not even read a single book, too many have been convinced that learning was a chore and not a joy.

Our schools did that. Our theories did that. We, as teachers/educators/administrators, are responsible by proxy for this.

And when you look at where all of this comes from, that's when you find out the really terrible things. IMHO, every teacher in the US (and probably Britain because a lot of our schooling originated in Britain) needs to read John Taylor Gatto's book and then stop blindly serving this system.

 

[kidswarrior]

And this is how many of the "high performing" schools meet NCLB standards, by getting rid of students who will pull down their scores.

My class is the destination when they get rid of them for the final time, so that's my stake in this thread.

I teach disadvantaged, learning disabled kids at a low income, "low achieving" school. The population of my school is over 30% ELL (English Language Learners); over 15% special education (the national average is around 10%); over 50% free/reduced lunch; highly transient (about 50% turnover in student population each year); their parents are employed at low-paying jobs because they themselves didn't do well in school, or don't speak English well (if at all) - and neither group can help their kids with their homework very well because they are either bad at educational tasks, or can't do them in English, or both - all of that feeds into why our student population enters middle school behind. Our students average 4 years' growth in the 3 years they attend our school - but they're still behind when they leave (if less behind than when they entered) and we are, therefore, still a "failing" school by NCLB standards.

Wow. :asian: Way back when I started out, in a teacher credentialing course, I learned that behind-kids get further behind as a rule: 1/2 year growth for every year of school, so you're beating the odds big time. Congratulations.

Anyone can teach an AP kid. In fact, I watched my daughter's group of geeky friends go through virtually all AP classes their senior year of HS, and always believed they learned far more from each other than any of the teachers.

Our current governor is aware of these types of problems, and is working to revamp the implementation of NCLB within Colorado - but his predecessor was known to have said (more or less) that it didn't matter what kind of home life the students had, how many times they'd moved, how far behind they were when they entered, how much (or little) support they had at home, whether they lived in an apartment, a house, or a car (about 2% of our population is homeless) - if we were good enough teachers nothing else mattered, and we'd be able to overcome it... and it we couldn't overcome it, the fault was ours and no one else's.

Good summation of what it's been like to be on the the inside of education in the 2000s.

In education, as in many other things, opinions, attitudes, and methods are on a pendulum, and I see this article as an indication that the pendulum may finally be swinging back from "teachers are the bane of students' existence and can do no right unless the test scores say they did" to something a little more moderate, that admits that there are other influences on students besides the school that can affect student achievement - well, it's about damned time, I think. Don't you?

Yes.

Here's where it gets tough. What DO we teach our children? Even if we weren't a melting pot of cultures and beliefs, this is no easy question, but here's my two cents...hold onto your seats, as it's kinda revolutionary in some circles...We teach them to THINK! We don't teach them to memorize theories (although they have thier uses). We teach them to be able to look things up (and want to) when they have a question. We make learning an exciting adventure of discovery, and we teach them to ask questions and get at the underlying causes of a situation. We teach them to look at things with a critical eye and not just the surface.

Let's face it, learning should be a life long event, not something we do for 8-12 years and then put on a shelf to get dusty. If a child knows how to figure things out and THINK....there is very little that can stop then, once they discover where thier interest lead!

My biggest compliant with No Child Left Behind, is that it removed some of the creative ways teachers were using to teach children to think/explore, and did so in favour of test scores and measurements...Thus leading to teaching to the test and elminating the outliers in a population.

Well said. Do we give someone a piece of fish, demand they eat it on the spot while we talk through the whole experience, and then test them on every aspect of our lecture and their tidbit afterward--then fail the teacher/school if students don't do 'well' on the *facts* as pre-determined by non-classroom teachers? Or, do we teach students to fish (think)--a lifelong skill?

 

[Xue Sheng]

Being one who is not a teacher but did work for a rather large government bureaucracy that was supposedly responsible for the educational standards of the state I live in I agree NCLB was not a good thing but NCLB or not the education of the children of my state is not the number one priority of the aforementioned bureaucracy.

They tend to be more concerned with being the kings of their own little fiefdoms with little concern about what the other fiefdom is up to. They work at cross purposes and put more and more pressure on teachers in just the paperwork now required to be a teacher and/or a school. It is a top heavy organization that really does not have the best interests of the teachers or children they teach in mind. So NCLB or not education is a bit of a mess and sadly the ones that pay for this are the children and the ones that get blamed are the teachers and the children should not pay it is not the teachers fault.

The solution is all to often, “make it harder” instead of “lets see what went wrong” or “lets try and understand what is going on” It is also said way to much "It's his/her fault" by those that are responsible and in charge of those they blame when something goes wrong and never ever "I am responsible for this so lets see what we can do to fix it". Pass the buck is practiced instead of figuring out how to better educate the children of this state.

As I quoted once before, as said by a deputy commissioner that was not a teacher at the bureaucracy form above

“Teachers should have nothing to do with testing”

But apparently statisticians knew more because that is who makes up the majority of the state tests.

 

[kidswarrior]

We can't go back to when things were that way here sadly but we can stop nonsense like not correcting spelling as it may damage a child if it's criticised, history here is taught by projects, lifting parts of history out and making models instead of teaching it from the beginning and working to present day. A culture of working hard should be engendered in our schools instead of pandering to the school psychologists who worry about the childrens fragile egos.

This is exactly the kind of emphases that NCLB put into place. So, in the US, we're right where you want education to be.

The solution is all to often, “make it harder” instead of “lets see what went wrong” or “lets try and understand what is going on” It is also said way to much "It's his/her fault" by those that are responsible and in charge of those they blame when something goes wrong and never ever "I am responsible for this so lets see what we can do to fix it". Pass the buck is practiced instead of figuring out how to better educate the children of this state.

You said a mouthful, here, brother. :asian:

 

[Live True]

Sadly, I think most of the posters here seem to agree to a central issue and problem....

Schools should teach and be places to learn, rather than surrogate parents and disciplinarians.

hmmm...what a concept!

 

[Live True]

and I must apologize if that prior post sounded flip...this is just such a frustrating situation, and I fear I let my inner whiner out a bit....someone lock the door!

 

[Ray]

"The educational system is based on grades..." I heard one speaker say, "...there should be no grades. What are they good for? Except to identify whether or not you can be controlled. It says that you didn't tell them to f.o. so often that they threw you out."

Measurements that are used in places I've been include: grades, efficiency, utilization (of both time and materials) and several other things.

I find it fascinating that the measurements become "the thing" that soon get all the focus. I have heard statements like "we have to improve efficiency" which puts all of the focus on "efficiency" instead of trying to improve the things done of which the measurement is merely a by-product. I've seen, in one case, overly large quantites of components (in manufacturing) get produced in order to "reduce set up" and "improve efficiency" -- the impact was this: shipments went down, revenue went down, accounts payable increased --- and all because the place didn't have the capacity to run all of the components when they ran many more than were required.

The focus shouldn't be grades, but something has to be used to give an indication of whether the underlying goals are being achieved.

 

[Makalakumu]

There are no easy answers, but fortunately there is no shortage of people who really do care about children.

The problem is that the system is teacherproof. One good teacher or a group of good teachers or even a school of good teachers cannot effect a large enough change to get back on the right track.

Instead of the 100th monkey we have the 10,000,000th because the information is so compartmentalized and diffuse. The overall effect is that everyone looks at everyone else while kids are failing or doing worse overall and no one knows why.

I always struggled with the whole idea that it always seemed like people a generation or two generations ago were held to a higher standard then we are now. For example, my grandfather grew up in rural central Minnesota. He went to a one room school and by the time he was an early teen, he was reading the greek classics in history, learning advanced mathematics, and studying Milton in a liturature class.

Nobody had any standards but the teacher and the parents pushed those kids beyond anything we could even dream of now days. It wasn't a perfect system because there were learners who were not equipped with the skills to go that far...but they had better options back then. There were numerous apprenticeships, trades, skills and other hands on work that needed to learned and done.

Now all of that is gone. We have schools without a single vo-tec program...or any other options other then this single uniform standard that is pushed down on us from on high. Where did this come from? How did we get to this place? How have we been convinced to accept increasingly mediocre standards for all of our children?

A clue lies in the history of the time when modern schooling was first introduced in this country. In the early 19th century, in New York City, a new type of school was conceived. This school would focus on reading, writing and arithmatic and would be focused on preparing students to go into the workforce. All humanities were to take a backseat to these goals laid out in these new schools. The Rockefellar Foundation commiserated with the New York City Council forcing kids who could not pay for private school into these new schools...

...and the parents rioted...

The immigrant parents of the time wrote angry letters saying that their child's academic diet had been so watered down that it was doubtful that the child would ever learn how to think deeply about any topic. The newspapers called these riots the "Jewish Student Riots" despite the fact that so many areas that schools were being burned down were non-Jewish areas.

And eventually the schools went away...but the men who designed the policies stayed.

It's a frog in a pot again. You throw a frog in a pot of boiling water, it jumps out. You put a frog in tepid water and turn up the heat, the frog dies.

I think we need to get rid of the pot and the guy turning up the heat.